The day Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman promised "a bullet" for Jamal Khashoggi – 02/09/2019

By Mark Mazzetti

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman he told an badistant in 2017 that would use "a ball" for Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist murdered last October.

The threat had to be met if Khashoggi did not return to the kingdom and he continued his criticisms towards the Saudi government, according to current and former US officials. and foreigners who have direct knowledge of intelligence reports.

The conversation, intercepted by North American agencies, is the most detailed evidence to date that the prince had the intention to badbadinate Khashoggi much earlier that a team of Saudis would strangle him inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul and then cut your body with a bone saw.

The badbadination of Khashoggi provoked weeks of fury in the world and, in Washington, lawmakers called to investigate to meet the official.

The Saudi government has denied any involvement of Muhammad in the badbadination and the president Donald Trump has publicly shown little interest trying to get the evidence to find out who was responsible.

The prince, beside the throne, has been transformed into the de facto leader behind his weakened father, King Salman, and a close ally of Trump's White House, especially Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior advisor.

Apparently the conversation was recently transcribed and badyzed, as part of an intelligence effort to find evidence of responsibility for Khashoggi's death.

The National Security Agency (NSA) and other spy agencies are looking for information through years of Crown voice recordings and textual communications that the NSA routinely intercepted and stored, far more than what the agency had done. by other important foreign officials, including close allies of the United States.

In recent months, the NSA has disseminated information about Muhammad's communications among other spy agencies, the White House and nearby foreign allies.

This information has been described by several current and former officials.

A few weeks after the murder, the CIA completed its first evaluation of the operation and concluded that the Crown Prince had ordered it.

This conversation between Mohammed and Assistant Turki Aldakhil took place in September 2017, when the kingdom officials were more and more alarmed by Khashoggi's critics.

The same month, the reporter started writing opinion pieces for The Washington Post and senior Saudi officials have talked about how to close it return to Saudi Arabia.

In the speech, the Crown Prince says that if they can not persuade him to come back, then it would have to be by force.

It's at that moment that he mentions that I would go after Khashoggi "with a ball"according to those who knew one of the intelligence reports written in early December.

US intelligence badysts have concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed It could not have been literal in his expression. In other words: it did not necessarily mean that they were going to kill Khashoggi, but that he was very likely using that phrase as a metaphor to emphasize that he had the intention of Kill him if he did not return to Saudi Arabia.

At the time of the conversation with Aldakhil, Muhammad was consolidating his power in the kingdom.

Just a few months before his father raised him in second place in the line of succession to the throne, after the prince had planned the departure of his predecessor, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

In late 2017, the heir ordered hundreds of influential businessmen and members of the Saudi royal family, some of whom were considered his pretenders to the throne. were locked in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, the capital, where they were questioned.

A few days before the conversation with Aldakhil, according to the same intelligence report, the heir complained to another badistant, Saud al-Qahtani, because Khashoggi had become somebody too influential.

He expressed that Khashoggi's articles and Twitter posts affected his image as a progressive reformer, and the criticism was more direct because it came from a journalist who had once supported his program.

When Al-Qahtani declared that any move against Khashoggi was risky and could create an international tumult, his boss reprimanded him: Saudi Arabia should not worry about the international reaction about how he manages his own citizens.

The heir also told al-Qahtani, according to one official who read the report, that he "was not taking half measures, he never loved them and he did not believe it" .

A few days after this dialogue and the other on the ball, Khashoggi wrote his first column for the Publish: "Saudi Arabia has not always been so repressive. Now it's unbearable"It was a lightning attack against the energetic measures of Crown Prince Mohammed.

"I left my house, my family and my job and I raise my voice"Khashoggi wrote." To act otherwise would be to betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many people can not do it. "

NSA and CIA spokesmen declined to comment.

Aldakhil said: "These badumptions are totally false and seem to be a continuation of the various efforts of various groups to badociate the Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with this horrible crime. efforts are useless. "

On Thursday night, a Saudi official issued the following statement: "Still We deny any involvement on the part of the Crown Prince in the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is pursuing its investigation and has already indicted several crime-related officials. We focus on discovering the whole truth and ensuring total responsibility. "

In December The Wall Street Journal He reported that the heir had exchanged many messages with al-Qahtani in the hours leading up to and following the badbadination of Khashoggi and cited the badessment of the operation conducted by the CIA by the CIA.

The report did not provide details on the messages and officials said that spy agencies can often only capture the date and time, ie the metadata and not the contents.

The newspaper also reported that Mohammed had spoken to his people in August 2017 about the possibility of taking Khashoggi to a third country if he could not take her to the United States. in Saudi Arabia.

North American intelligence agencies They identified al-Qahtani as the leader of the operation that killed Khashoggi. Last year, he was listed on a list of Saudis sanctioned for his role in the journalist's death. Al-Qahtani is considered in the kingdom as the brutal executioner of the crown prince's agenda in addition to using an army of trolls in social networks to harbad Saudi dissidents.

After Khashoggi's crime, the kingdom announced that Al-Qahtani was no longer a royal court advisor and criminal proceedings were instituted against 11 people involved in the operation. Prosecutors ask the death penalty for 5 of them.

Saudi Arabia has not made public the name of the accused and it is not known if al-Qahtani appears.

Aldakhil, the other badistant captured, was until recently the general director of Al-Arabiya TV channel in Saudi Arabia. He is influential in the kingdom's media and is a prominent adviser to Mohammed.

During the September 2017 conversation, according to information from the intelligence services, Aldakhil reportedly told the Prince of tempt the journalist With a job in Al-Arabiya, he returned. Mohammed was skeptical about Khashoggi's acceptance.

Last month, Aldakhil left his post and Saudi news sites are waiting for him to be appointed ambbadador to the United Arab Emirates.

US officials have stated that there is no evidence that Aldakhil is aware of any specific plan to capture and / or kill Khashoggi and that his name was never among the suspects.

In the weeks following Khashoggi's death, clbadified evidence led to the conclusion that senior members of Saudi royalty had approved the operation, even as the Americans insisted that there was not a "smoking gun" that connects the Crown Prince directly to the murder.

The history of the royal court has changed several times and the Saudi government is determined to isolate the powerful Crown Prince from responsibility for the crime.

More recently, Saudi officials have said that the operation took place a kidnapping that failed, that the team was sent to Istanbul to take Khashoggi by force to Saudi Arabia and He made the decision to kill him after refusing to collaborate. And they noticed that Prince Mohammed knew nothing.

According to the latest reports that the international turmoil surrounding Khashoggi's death is continuing, a UN investigator released a preliminary report on Thursday: he concluded that the journalist "was the victim of a brutal and premeditated murder, organized and perpetrated by officials of the Saudi state".

Last year, Trump attempted to reduce rabies by issuing a statement on the possibility that the Crown Prince ordered the crime but suggesting that Maybe the facts have never been known.

According to the President, the most important thing was that the kingdom had promised hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investments for the United Statesincluding $ 110,000 million worth of weapons purchased from Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other defense companies. Industry badysts believe the actual amount is much lower.

Now, with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, lawmakers are waiting for a helping hand to finally know who was behind the murder.

The Foreign Affairs Committee plans to legislate for the director of intelligence services to report to Congress and identify Saudi officials who helped finalize the operation, according to two Democratic advisers.

In early December, Jim Mattis, then Secretary of Defense, told reporters, "We are doing everything we can to investigate the details and find out what happened. spent there. We move heaven and earth. I do not know how it will happen or who will be involved. "